LordoftheHunt (4 page)

Instead, he smiled. “I’ll wager you can do nothing about
this blood, mistress. But as you’re so sure of yourself, I’ll give you ten
pence if you’re right and I’m wrong.”

Edwina wriggled like one of Nat’s pups. “Ten pence! T’would
pay a laundress for weeks of service. I’ll see it perfect, sir, doubt it not.
Now off with yon tunic. I’ve work to do.”

Joan stood in place, one hand to her throat as he complied
with Edwina’s tart order and pulled his tunic over his head. He tossed it into
Edwina’s waiting arms. Next, he peeled off the long black linen shirt he wore
beneath it.

Joan sucked in her breath. The knight was nearly naked in
the light of two torches that flanked his tent. The flickering flames gleamed
on the long, lean muscles of his torso and arms. It was a body whose perfection
was marred with scars and abrasions—the marks of a warrior. Heat, like that of
the fires in the wash house, ran over her skin.

“And yer braies,” Edwina ordered.

The rush of heat became a flush of something else, something
that snatched her breath.

The man spread his arms wide, displaying the length of his
grasp and the wings of black hair that stretched out across his chest. This man
could swing the heavy battle ax that hung beside the keep’s hearth, said to
have been captured during a Viking raid.

“You would take my braies and leave me naked?” Adam Quintin
teased the laundress.

Edwina sniffed. “I’m sure I’ve seen better—and
bigger—before. Give ‘em over. And if yer so poor ye’ve but one pair o’ braies,
ye’ll no have my ten pence, now, will ye?” She snapped her fingers in his face.

He tipped his head back and laughed. It was a low and joyful
sound. It also attracted the attention of men at nearby fires. Joan pulled back
closer to the wall.

The knight turned away and entered his tent. A moment later,
his braies flew out the flap and landed at Edwina’s feet.

“Thank you, sir,” Edwina shouted as she stooped to scoop up
the linen undergarment. “Ye count out those pennies now. I’ll be here at dawn
to collect ‘em.”

Joan hastened away before Edwina saw her in the shadows. The
woman would think nothing of calling out her name, and everyone who heard—Adam
Quintin included—would know she’d watched the knight strip from his bloody
garments.

Once Joan had held out hope that Nat and Edwina would marry.
Though they never had, Edwina often served up advice like a mother would and
watched over her.

She stopped at the cottage. “Papa, I’m going to take Matthew
for a run.” She did not tell him she wanted to teach the lymer a new hand
signal. Matthew spent so much time with Nat, she had little opportunity to keep
his training apace of his fellows.

Nat stood up and stretched. “I’ll be off to bed then, I’ve
got to be up before the sun.”

She kissed his cheek and left the cottage. She made a light
clucking sound with her tongue to bring Matthew to her heel. They passed the
kennel and she leashed an older, more experienced lymer named Basil. The three
of them walked through the many stalls and tents in the bailey. Men did not
bother her with two sizable dogs at her side.

Some newly arrived merchants were erecting their makeshift
stalls for the week. Servants stood about talking to the visitors, sharing
gossip.

At the gate, Joan nodded to Thomas, the gatehouse guard. “I
want to run the lymers along the river.”

Thomas frowned. “You shouldn’t be out so late. I’ve orders
from the bishop that any who wish to come or go may, but I think he had yon
suitors in mind.”

“I’ll not be long.” She hastened on as she spoke, lest the
man try to detain her.

Matthew raced away from the village and toward the river
though the older dog remained at her side. “So, you’re of the same mind as I,”
she said when Matthew circled back. “There’s naught in the village we care to
see, is there?”

She ruffled the hound’s ears. He made a happy, snuffling
sound, then bounded off toward the muddy river bank.

After he’d had a short run, she called him back for
training. She held her hand by her side, her fingers together. The older lymer,
Basil, immediately sat. Matthew followed suit, still as a statue. When she
spread her fingers, both dogs rose, but crouched low on their haunches, bodies
tense, ready to spring. She closed her fingers and without hesitation, both sat
again. She rewarded them with fine words of praise and her baked nuggets.

Then she worked on another signal, her hands crossed on her
breast, one she thought she might need with so many men on the castle grounds.
The signal would cause the dogs to hold a man in position. Guarding, she called
it. And if the man tried to pass the dogs, they would menace him until he
stopped.

It was not a skill needed for hunting. It was a skill she
had taught each dog for her own protection.

“Is Matthew not a canny student?” she asked Basil. “You are
both wonderful,” she said when they were done. “Now play.” She snapped her
fingers. Matthew bounded off. The older lymer remained at her side, never
moving more than a foot away.

She followed Matthew at her own pace, keeping the castle
walls on her right. The dog wandered, nose to the ground, occasionally pausing
to look back at her, then offering a muffled woof to let her know she moved too
slowly to suit him. With a sigh, she looked back at the castle.

The moon rose from behind the walls to illuminate her path
and silver Matthew’s sleek coat. He looked like he might be the ghost of the
long-dead Jupiter as he slipped and slid from shadow to shadow.

Adam and Hugh crossed the bailey to Ravenswood’s great hall
lighted with dozens of smoking torches. They climbed a high, wooden staircase
meant to be withdrawn in times of siege. The iron-strapped doors at the top of
the steps opened and noise spilled out into the night.

Emotion choked Adam’s throat as a guard flung the door wide.
Adam’s last visit here was to see his mother laid to rest. He thrust the
thought aside.

In the brightly lighted hall, he had a sudden qualm that
someone might recognize him. He ran his hand over his jaw. He’d only grown the
beard in the last few weeks and it still surprised him when he touched his
face.

No one paid him any heed as Hugh led the way past ranks of
tables toward the great hearth. The company was too busy fawning on the more
important Hugh de Coleville to see a mere knight.

“Is it much changed?” Hugh asked when they’d reached the
fore of the hall and a dais upon which sat a draped table for the bishop’s most
illustrious guests.

“There’s little familiar here. There were not so many
benches. Or embroidered cushions.” He leaned close to Hugh’s ear. “There are
far too many cushions, if I might venture an opinion. I do hope Lady Mathilda
can do more than stitch a pillow cover.”

“She’ll have other things to do with her hands if she weds
you.”

Adam smiled. “There were paintings by the hearth, but I
think I like this better.”

The huge paintings that had flanked the hearth were now
replaced on the left with a fine tapestry and on the right with ranks of
weapons.

“Quite a collection. I see a Viking ax and isn’t that a
Saracen blade?”

Adam nodded, then froze in place. There, amidst a starburst
of weapons, was his grandfather’s sword. He opened his mouth to tell Hugh the
sword had once cut down a score of men at one battle when he became aware of
the scent of flowers. He turned from Hugh to the woman who stood with one foot
poised on the edge of the dais.

She was a vision of beauty. He belatedly bowed. It would not
do to be more interested in the weapons than the object of the matrimonial
hunt.

“My lady,” he managed when Hugh nudged him sharply in the
back. Hugh introduced him.

Lady Mathilda tipped her head to the side. “Adam Quintin? I
believe I know your name.”

The lady’s golden circlet made a halo about her lovely blonde
head. Her face was as serene as any angel’s worthy of a halo, her lips and
cheeks as pink as rose petals.

“I would not know in what capacity, my lady.” Her hand in
his was delicate, made for stitching useless things. No freckles marred her
skin. She had a ring on every finger. He touched his lips to her hand, then
turned it and kissed her palm. She wore another ring on her middle finger,
turned palm-in. Her skin was scented with almond. She was perfection.

“I am sure I know who you are.” She raised her eyes to the
lofty ceiling overhead with its smoke-blackened beams and sighed. “Ah. I have
it. You’re the mysterious knight who is undefeated in tournament play. It’s an
honor to meet you.”

Lady Mathilda dropped into a deep curtsy that belled her
golden skirts, trimmed at the hem with six inches of embroidery. He feared she
might not rise under the weight of the many gold chains about her neck.

Hugh grunted and stepped forward. “He’s the undefeated
Quintin. The best with a sword in all of Christendom.”

Adam coughed. Hugh usually only made the sword reference
when referring to his prowess between a woman’s thighs.

Lady Mathilda turned to Hugh. He took her hand in a
perfunctory way, lifted it, and with barely a touch of his lips, dropped it.
The perfect line of her brows was ruined when she pulled them together in a
frown.

“Lord Hugh,” she said. “It has been a long time since we’ve
seen each other.”

Adam wished there was some way to excuse Hugh’s lack of
manners, but the man still smarted from the barbs of Cupid’s arrow and treated
women with either bland indifference or outright contempt. His usually
formidable features were rendered even more so when he frowned as he did right
now.

“Hugh is also a fine swordsman,” Adam ventured.

Hugh rounded on him. “Nay. Flatter me not. ‘Tis your sword
famous in poem and song. I’m sure Lady Mathilda would wish to see you ply it.”

“
Mon Dieu
,” Adam muttered.

“I look forward to seeing you on the tournament field, then,
Sir Adam.” She turned to Hugh. “And you, as well. I have long wished for the
pleasure of seeing your sword.”

Adam almost choked.

“I do not intend to enter the fray, my lady,” Hugh said, his
face blandly indifferent. “I am here to watch Adam Quintin take all honors.”

Brian de Harcourt approached. He whispered in Adam’s ear,
“Do you see why Joan is called plain?”

Adam ignored him, grabbed Hugh’s arm, and marched him away.

“Was that necessary?” he asked. “I’ll have your tongue
stewed by the cook for that.”

“I don’t see what I’ve done to warrant such punishment,”
Hugh said with mock solemnity, his hand on his breast. “I merely wished the
lovely lady to know that you’re a master swordsman.”

Lady Mathilda clapped and the hall fell silent. A boy held
her arm as she climbed onto a stool and then onto a chair that she might be
visible to all who gathered in the hall.

“I wish to welcome my illustrious guests to Ravenswood
Manor. I have many festivities planned to entertain you who have come to our
Harvest Hunt and Tournament.”

A cacophony of cheering and shouting burst from the
gathering. She held up one delicate hand and again the hall fell silent. “Each
night, as we gather here for supper, I will assess the day and award a kiss and
a token to the man who has afforded the most pleasure to one and all.”

“What is this?” Adam asked Hugh.

“A woman making fools of men. If you want her, this is what
you must bear.”

Adam headed away from the dais and the small, perfect woman
who ruled there.

“Do you think it was wise to abandon the field to Brian?”

“Why not? I’m as sore as a virgin on her wedding night and
have no wish to sit down right now. I want to do nothing more than rest my
bones. And the bishop’s nowhere about.”

Hugh stepped in front of him. “Adam, you are here for one
purpose and one only. As is every other man you see.” Hugh swept out his hand
to the crowded hall. “How can you win the woman if you allow such a man as
Brian to occupy her attentions?”

Adam glanced over his shoulder to where Brian was seated at
Lady Mathilda’s feet. The lady was smiling and giggling in a manner that set
Adam’s teeth on edge. He realized he must pretend to care about her. No one
must know the true reason he was at Ravenswood. Yet he had other matters to
attend to this night.

“I cannot turn about now,” he said to Hugh. “I’ll unseat
Brian when the time comes as surely as the boar unseated me today. And why are
you leaving?”

Hugh shrugged. “I’m not after the lady. I thought I’d do my
hunting over at the kennels; perhaps see if the huntress is lonely.”

Adam frowned. Hugh’s tawny hair was unruly and his face a
hard collection of lines, but he’d not failed with many women, save the one
who’d just broken his heart. Was it because, for once, Hugh’s name and wealth
had been of no use to him? The lady had been seduced by a man with greater
power—a brother to the king of Spain.

A knot of minstrels began to strum their lutes and sing of a
knight’s bold and brave deed. The refrain emphasized the size of the knight’s
heart in comparison to the size of a boar’s great tusks.

Adam’s frown transformed into a wide grin. “You need not
fear Mathilda will forget me. Listen and hear how my single sword blow killed a
boar this very day.”

He bowed to Hugh and strode through the keep doors. The air
was almost warm for the time of year. The scent of burning torches filled the
night as did the rich scent of roasting meat. Dozens of fires were lighted
about the bailey where servants and men-at-arms fed themselves while their
masters courted the lady of the keep.

Adam did not go to his tent as he had told Hugh he wished to
do. Instead, Adam passed it and entered the castle chapel.

He took a seat on a bench along the wall and waited. An old
woman came to light candles, eyeing him with obvious displeasure, but Adam
remained in place. Air stirred against the back of his neck and told him
another had entered the chapel. A young man of about a score sat beside him. It
was one of the minstrels from the hall.

When the old woman had shuffled off, the young man held out
his hand. “I’m Christopher,” he said.

Adam examined the young man’s night-black hair and beard. He
grinned. “You look enough like me to be my brother.”

Christopher grinned back. “I’ll warrant I’ll not get as much
attention as you, though.”

“Thank you for the song,” Adam said.

The minstrel shrugged. “You did the deed, I but set it to
music.”

“You left out the hounds.”
And the huntress.

“Lady Mathilda will not be enchanted by a hound.”

Adam sobered at the reminder of his task. “What news have
you for me?”

“Nothing much, I fear. Just that Prince Louis will try
again, this time he’ll have Bishop Gravant to smooth his way with the church
and whomever weds Mathilda to gather support among the barons.”

“What of the lady? Where do her loyalties lie?”

“With herself. It’s believed that no matter what Lady
Mathilda thinks, it will not be she who chooses the next lord of Ravenswood,
but the bishop.”

“Which man does the bishop favor?”

“I’ve heard naught to lead me to one man over another.”

“And you get this from gossip?”

“Nay, more a chance word here or there.”

“In truth, the traitor need not be here. A baron may send
his son to take Ravenswood without stirring from his own keep.”

Christopher shook his head. “Nay. Barons are far too
arrogant to allow their sons to see to this deed. It’s too capricious a way to
secure the place. That’s not my thought, but our lord’s. Nay, the son will be
used to secure the lady, but the father will ride in after to take the keep.

“And with Marshal’s edict that no man may gather more than a
score of men in any one place—well, what can a man do with only a score of men?
The castle must be taken by marriage.”

“Why doesn’t the bishop open the doors?” Adam asked.

“The Church cannot afford a rift with the king any more than
the king can afford a rift with the church. But you may be sure at week’s end,
the bishop will have chosen Mathilda’s husband, and it will be our traitor. By
then it will be too late. By right of marriage, the traitor will possess this
castle. A siege would be needed to wrest it back. The Church would be
offended.”

“And what if the lady wishes to choose me?” Adam grinned at
Christopher.

“Forgive me, but if William Marshal is right, you will not
be chosen.” The minstrel shook his head. “The lady may want you, but she’ll not
have her way.”

“But this edict also demands I have but a score of men with
me. There’s little I can do with so few men.”

“Do you have men elsewhere?”

“A score here and a score there,” Adam said vaguely.

Christopher lowered his voice. “Others may have done the
same. I’ll try to find out. We must arrange a signal of sorts when we need each
other, something we can use no matter whether we’re in the hall or in the
fields.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Can you sing?”

Adam grimaced. “Not to speak of. I can but whistle.”

“That will serve.” The minstrel pursed his lips. The small
chapel filled with a familiar strain heard at any hunt.

“A fitting choice.” Adam followed the minstrel’s effort,
trilling the notes.

They talked for another quarter hour, divided the suitors
between them, and made plans to search each man’s belongings for evidence he
might connive with Prince Louis. Last, they arranged for daily meetings.

Adam remained behind, but only for a few moments. He left
the stone church, dwarfed by Ravenswood’s towers, and walked around the east
side. There, he approached the entrance to the crypt. The door was not visible
to any other building, nor to the towers themselves. A pavilion concealed its
view from the bailey as well. His pavilion.

Adam entered the rib-vaulted crypt. He felt along the top of
the door, but encountered only dust. He searched farther back where mortar had
begun to crumble and smiled when his fingers encountered a key. The last time
he’d held this key, he’d been at Ravenswood to see his mother laid to rest.

He groped about on a stone ledge and found a stub of candle
and a flint. He lighted the candle, closed the crypt door, and took the five
steps down to where his mother lay at rest.

After a brief prayer for her soul, he passed a hand over the
chiseled letters of her name. He had never believed the essence of a person
remained behind to watch over, or torment, the living.

Just past the rows of burial niches, he set his candle down.
It flickered in the draft caused by a slit between the fitted stones of the
crypt wall and the painted wooden floor. He inserted the key in what looked
like a knothole in the wood. A section of the floor lifted away.

Before him lay a rough-hewn staircase. He retrieved his
candle, pulled the section of floor back over his head, plugged the keyhole
with a scrap of linen he’d brought along for the purpose, and hurried down the
steps.

With each step, the air grew cooler. At the bottom a
corridor veered right. He examined the stone floor. A fine dusting of dirt
covered the square-cut blocks. He made the only impressions as he walked
quickly down the corridor which followed the outer wall of the castle until it
reached the river.